Iran arrests journalists

IRAN

New York Times

Updated 10:38 pm, Monday, January 28, 2013

Security forces in Iran have arrested journalists from at least four Iranian newspapers and one news agency over the past few days and accused them of consorting with hostile foreign media, the state-run press reported Monday. Iranian rights advocates called the arrests part of a broader campaign of intimidation to forestall political unrest ahead of the presidential elections in June.

The official accounts did not make clear how many journalists had been arrested, the precise nature of the accusations against them or when they might be formally charged.

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a media advocacy group based in New York, said at least 11 journalists had been seized, calling it the largest crackdown on Iranian media since unrest that swept the country four years ago.

Accounts by the Mehr news agency and other official news outlets said many of the journalists had been taken into custody on Sunday after the raids on the outlets, all of which are regarded as reform minded.

None of the arrests was reported by the raided organizations themselves. Some Iranian journalists said the omissions appeared to reflect fears of further antagonizing the Revolutionary Guards and affiliated security forces whose loyalties lie with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Mehr news agency said the arrested journalists had been accused of "collaborating with some of the Persian-language foreign media" - apparently an allusion to the Persian services of both the BBC and the Voice of America.

Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, an advocacy group based in New York, said the arrests came against the backdrop of increased political tensions in Iran over the upcoming presidential elections and Khamenei's wish to avoid a repeat of the mayhem that followed the disputed 2009 campaign.

"There is a lot of nervousness in the regime, including a lot of infighting," Ghaemi said. "This is the beginning of an attempt to have a very controlled and quiet election coming up, and not result in any popular outbursts."

News organizations in Iran that are regarded as reformist, he said, "were the easiest to quiet down."